Some running repairs have been required to the fiddle yards following our exhibition outing.
A couple of the points became a bit iffy over the weekend, needing repeated presses of the push buttons - and a burst from the CPU - to throw.
Another one had a freak failure of the shaft connecting the motor and the point.
All those dodgy units have now been replaced.
It’s remarkable that we should have so many fail in one weekend given how those installed on Dduallt have done nearly 30 years.
One of the rotary switches to select the roads has been changed - a big job with so many connections to be unsoldered and replaced - and there were a number of failed LEDS to be renewed.
Components are not what they used to be, it seems..
This was one of the more unusual trains we've ever run on Bron Hebog.
I suspect many of you have already guessed that the object on the wagon in front of Taliesin is a miniature digital camera.
It was being used to record a 'driver's eye view' sequence on the layout by a model railway You Tuber who posts highlights packages of exhibitions.
Bron Hebog is towards the end of the film but I would encourage you to pour yourself a cup of tea and watch the whole thing through because there were many great layouts on show in Greenock.
It's amazing to think a week has gone by already since the Greenock show last weekend.
One of the pictures I haven't published until now is when Himself decided to give the new FR observation car a trip around the layout to see how it ran.
It was attached to the rear of one of the two full-length FR rakes we were running, taking the place of number 100 for one round trip.
It's at the stage where the gloss paint has been applied and the - very tricky - glazing cut and fitted.
Now the next job is to apply intricate Pullman lining using various kinds of waterslide transfer sheets produced by Fox.
The only time we ever get to put the whole of Bron Hebog together is the rare occasions - a couple of times a year if we're lucky, when it gets invited to exhibitions.
If we've set up on the Friday evening the hour or so before the public get let in on the Saturday is our chance to have a little play for ourselves and so at the weekend our latest Garratt, 130, was taken for a spin around the S bends.
It's still very much in the running-in stage, with the front unit working much harder than the rear, and its test run came to a premature conclusion when the back one went on strike at the station throat.
We had a great weekend at our home club exhibition in Greenock giving Bron Hebog its Scottish debut.
Rather like with the return from a holiday, however, the days following a show like this leave you feeling rather flat.
I suspect it will be a few days before I get my mojo back.
Part of it, I think, is a subconscious feeling of dissatisfaction that local shows like ours don't always get the credit, or the clientele, they deserve.
This year's show in Greenock might have been small compared to one of the events in a big city but I would argue the quality of what was on show was on a par with anything I've seen elsewhere in recent years.
There are good things happening in Scottish railway modelling right now, but I have a suspicion its not getting the recognition it deserves.
The OO layouts which came first and second in the public vote in Greenock would find a place at any of the best exhibitions in the UK - Kilbowie (the Caley in Clydebank at the end of steam) and Barnsford Bridge (a bang-up to date depot layout) combine excellent scenic modelling with beautifully detailed and modified models plus the immersive experience of DCC light and sound.
We were humbled to receive a great many compliments for Bron Hebog but I suspect that for many of the ordinary punters, who are not dyed in the wool railway enthusiasts, it went slightly over their heads.
It's probably a taste of what it's always felt like to be exhibiting a continental layout at any time ever...
The truth is narrow gauge modelling - especially with 'weird' engines like Garratts - is very niche.
You can never get the same ego boost at a show like the one this weekend as we do when we've had it on display in the goods shed at Dinas station, with the real engines simmering outside and surrounded by an audience who know what they're looking at and, dare I say (?), fully appreciating what's gone into creating it.
It's a similar story in the online modelling world.
I've spent nearly 10 years writing this blog and posting on social media but still attract a fraction of the followers than many other modern image OO bloggers and vloggers can attract.
Is it frustrating? Frankly, yes it is.
Perhaps I'm just crabbit with the post-exhibition blues.
In a few hours time (as I write) we’ll be in the process of setting up Bron Hebog for this weekend’s exhibition in Greenock - our ‘home’ show now - and the layout’s Scottish debut!
We’ll have a number of new models getting their first run on the layout.
Garratt 143 brings our active NGG16 roster to four, making life a lot simpler for the fiddle yard operators who should have less of a struggle finding suitable motive power for the two long WHR rakes.
(If only it we’re that easy on the real railway sometimes...)
Our heritage set will be appearing for the first time along with Gelert to take a turn hauling it.
Do say hello if you’re coming along to have a look.
I spent a happy couple of hours at the weekend helping to operate on one of the Greenock club's layouts at a local exhibition in Renfrewshire and renewing my acquaintance with all things standard gauge.
Inverboyndie is a compact terminus / shunting layout based on Banff in Morayshire in the 1960s but has one link with our layouts because it also has a gravity train feature - loose shunting of carriages in order to get the engine on the other end of the train without the aid of a run round loop (or a second locomotive).
This feature (achieved by cheating with a powered carriage bogie) is made immeasurably easier since the invention of DCC - and it was my first experience of using this new fangled technology.
I can't deny I was impressed but I would be lying if I said I enjoyed it more than running an old-fashioned DC wired layout.
Frankly I found it a bit of a faff!
There's something very intuitive about twiddling a knob to control a train but I didn't get any of that with a DCC handset - it felt more like a double maths period with a scientific calculator in your hand.
There's nothing pleasingly tactile about pushing buttons for me.
Ah, said my friend, but with DCC you're really driving the train, not just controlling a motor, and I could see what he was getting at, because the simulated deceleration does mean you have to concentrate and anticipate what you're doing a lot more.
(It also massively increased the opportunities for pile-ups with inexperienced operators....)
But it was all the upshift, downshift, function x, y and z to control the whooshes, hisses and toots that got my eyes glazing over.
There's an old saying, that people in my trade like to hang on to, that the pictures are better on radio, and part of me thinks that this applies to model railways as well.
I quite like daydreaming and hearing the sounds in my head as I operate a layout rather than having a computer chip in control.
Broadcaster, writer and railway modeller.
Best known for the 009 Festiniog Railway layout 'Dduallt' which I built with my father David in the early 1990's and which is still making appearances on the exhibition circuit.
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